SOURCES AND MANAGEMENT OF EDUCATION FINANCE IN NIGERIA ACCORDING TO LEVELS

Three policy makers in education in Nigerian are invariably the providers of education funds. These are:
(a) The Public – represented by the federal, state and local governments;
(b) The private individuals and
(c) The rest of the world.
These three groups deny themselves of other services or opportunities to fund the education of their citizens, children and beneficiaries respectively.
a) The Public
By way of practical approach, it is convenient to review the position of each public financing source by reference to the level of east government in the county in line with the policy of democratization and devolution of responsibilities for provision of education.
i) Federal Government:
The Federal Government’s contribution to educational financing in Nigeria is shown not only in the budget of the Ministry of Education but also in the budget of other Ministries responsible for certain types of training. For example, the Ministry of Labour and Productivity is often responsible for technical and vocational training, the Ministry of Agriculture for agriculture, education and rural training, the Ministry of Health for nursing education and school of Health Technologies, the office of the presidency for Schools of Administration such as Administrative Staff College, Topo, Badagary in Lagos and so for the, such educational expenditures are shown in the annual budgets of the ministries. The federal government is mainly charge with the provision of higher education and it runs the federal Universities through the National Universities Commission (NUC).
Ogunu (2000:77-79) has noted that during the Third National Development Plan (1975 – 1980) education got N3.2 billion or 12% of the total sector effective programme of N25.5 billion. This was based on the social demand approach to educational planning with the introduction of UPE in September, 1876 and the University expansion from 6 to 13 during the period. Amount assigned to education during the period 1990 – 2000 have increased from year to year. The Table below shows Federal Governments allocation to education sector from 1988 to 1996. The total allocation to education rose from 1,066,146,000 in 1988 to 15,351719 in 1996. Thus the percentage of the National budgetary allocation to education rose from 3.3% to 12.4% in 1988 and 1996 respectively.
Budgetary Allocation to Education 1988 – 1996

1988
000
1989
000
1990
000
1991
000
1992
000
1993
000
1994
000
1995
000
1996
000
Recurrent
824,346
1,719,823
1,971,999
1,762,252
2,008,340
1,436,981
7,878,085
9,798,523
12,135,958
Capital
24,180
221,888
347,746
328,858
659,530
563,020
2,405,700
3,017,910
3,215,761
Total percentage of the National Budgetary
1,06,146
1,941,721
7,319,736
154,090
2,667,870
7,999,101
10,283,185
12,816,4333
15,351,719
Allocation to Education
3.3%
6.4%
5.8%
4.01%
5.12%
6.97%
14.8%
11.5%
12.4%
Source: Federal Ministry of Education, Statistics Branch, December, 1996

The Educational Research Network in West and Central Africa (ERNWACA) has observed that until the mid – 1980s state expenditures in formal education in West and Central Africa consistently commanded fairly high percentages of national public spending even during the early years of major austerity measures and that the salaries of educational personnel have commanded much the highest proportion of educational expenses (Belem in Maclure, Richard [ed]) overlooked and undervalued, ERNWACE (1997). That is to say that the Federal Government provides the highest percentage of the cost education.

ii) State Governments:
The State Governments through the States Ministries of Education play an important part in educational financial especially in a country like Nigeria with a decentralized financing system as in the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Under the concurrent legislative arrangement in education, the State Governments are charged wit the responsibility of providing secondary education. It should be noted that there are generally subventions from the federal government to the states and local governments through federation accounts for the provision of education amongst other services in the states and local government areas.

iii) Local Governments:
The Local Governments constitute the third tier of the Public authorities in Nigeria and they are charge with the management of primary education in the country. Within the provisions of concurrent legislative list, the local governments are charged with the provision of primary education. However, due to the vagaries of withholding the salaries of primary school teachers by the local governments, the federal government took over the payment of primary school teachers salaries through its agency – the National Primary Education Commission (NPEC) and the state primary Education Board (SPEB) while the Local Education Authorities see to the day-to-day supervision or instruction and posting o the head teachers and the classroom teachers.

b) Private Sources
The private source of education finance cover four items namely, tuition fees, other private receipts from parents, private grants, endowments and other sources, but few countries are in a position to supply information of sufficient precision, even at overall level. It is, for example extremely difficult to estimate the contribution of families without an appropriate case study or special statistical survey. The size of the private contribution which is imperfectly known varies widely in different countries according to social, economic and institutional factors.

c) External Aid
In the developing countries, external aid often plays a paramount part in educational financing and must therefore be taken into account in assessing total costs of education. Carnou and Agonsanou in Maclure (1997:16) writing on external aid for education in West and Central Africa attest that “figures on external assistance for formal education are also reasonably transparent.
The foreign aid to education in Nigeria could take the form of pedagogical resource inputs such as library books, teaching personnel, vehicles for school inspection visits etc or assistance in the payment of salary and non-salary recurrent bills or assistance in the provision of infrastructures (classroom and office blocks, desks and chairs, teaching aids, toilet facilities etc). Tilak (1988) has ably argued a case for foreign aid for education in the poor developing countries. He justified foreign aid on the grounds of efficiency, equity and the advisability for the rich countries to assist the poor countries in the interest of global peace stability and progress.